Monday, January 23, 2012

An account through the brain of a sleep and caffeine deprived cyclist is what follows

The Bay Crits...
...were hot. stinking hot! Ripping out a few laps in the individual support race was on the cards and enjoying watching the elite guys get their internal temperatures up to a light simmer in the searing heat capped it all off. Nothing of merit for me. But my goals achieved, legs warmed up, lungs expanded, heart sufficiently stressed.

The National Crit Title...
...AJ Won!! Holy !!#!#$$# You little Rippa!!
Last year in our team it was all "Steele this and Haas that". With the team goal achieved (ie rider development, ie riders moving onward and upward) there was a lot of talk about what Genesys would bring to the table in the sprinting department in 2012. Well, we all knew the quiet lead out maestro known within our team as 'AJ' had what it took to fill the void (not to forget Alex Carver, a new team recruit who will want to take some sprint wins of his own this year). Now the cheeky bugger has gone and won an elite bay crit and a national crit title.

"They're racing as if they're HTC Columbia delivering Mark Cavendish to the line"

As Matt Keenan alluded to whilst commentating the crit; we rode well as a team. Maybe HTC is a bit of a stretch, but hey, nothing wrong with talking it up for the crowd! I got a few good turns on the front chasing a few lone riders and spent some time jumping across to breaks early on. All good. All painful. All fun

'The' Road Race...
...Start. Go Fast. Stop. The End.

Yes the race was fast, so fast it had me gasping for every gram of oxygen. Nick Benz looks similarly unhappy with life...

...Tailwind up the climb. Cross wind across the top. It was ooonnn. I survived for ~7-8 laps with the peleton then got blown away and called it a day to save some beans for the TT

The TT
Sweet merciful crap, that was windy. The race was analogous to performing a 50 minute plank whilst getting buffeted by winds that threw you around like a an ex cricketing star's Mercedes. Far out if I had of been racing with a rego plate I would have been done for drink riding for sure, I was going from left to right, back to left, back to right, back to... Unfortunately in winds like those, with disc wheels and 808 front wheels (Thanks Zipp!) holding a straight line was not possible. It was more like riding in sand, you just had to be firm but also relaxed and just let the wind take you where it was gonna take. I survived, phew.

So the good news is I am back into normal racing and training mode and hopefully I shall find myself better equipped to regale you with some funny stories in between, hopefully...